22/07/2014 01:48 Conceptual Barriers - Davidya.

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Conceptual Barriers
I have seen over and over how important right understanding is. Much as we may have cultured our
physiology with meditation and other spiritual practices, our beliefs about what awakening or
enlightenment is will be a barrier to actually living it. For most westerners, the last stress to
awakening is our expectations of it. There are thousands of people who are ripe for awakening,
hindered only by this one thing.
Ive noted that to actually switch or awaken after all that preparation is much aided by 2 things:
1) Right understanding
2) A living example (darshan) we can emulate or resonate with.
The first clears our personal barriers above, the second helps us step through the gate-less gate,
something outside our entire history of experience. Both can be supported by a skilled teacher able to
speak from the silence. When youre listening in a group but the teacher seems to be speaking directly
to you, this is why. It is Self in you hearing Itself.
Some teachers approach understanding by mostly avoiding concepts, asking you to put them aside.
They focus on the subtle shift in attention needed to awaken. Gangaji is one such teacher Ive enjoyed
hearing. In her interview on Batgap, she clearly touches on the 3 stages in her own unfolding but
doesnt name them. She may not even have words for it.
For some, this is all they need. But many of us have strong enough minds to need some more complete
understanding. You wouldnt be on this blog otherwise. (laughs) Without that, our mind will naturally
be seeking ways to fill in the gaps. We usually dont even notice it doing this but the result is a set of
beliefs about what we need to be or do in order to awaken. Usually it contains some ideas like perfect,
infallible, later, difficult and other nonsense weve applied. Enlightenment is awesome beyond
conception but it is also normal; for ordinary people rather than some future ideal. Flawed ideas dont
serve us well in either the approach or after the shift.
Ive quite enjoyed Adyashantis books as he takes a more middle ground, touching lightly on the
stages and making the process much more real and relatable rather than presenting some high,
impossible ideal.
I sit at the other end of this spectrum with a history of a profound drive to understand. Ive studied
some of the worlds oldest traditions and have found myself sitting in unexpected circumstances with
some remarkable beings. My approach is to lay out and explore the underlying process and the
variations in which it might be experienced. I like a good map of the journey. But it always comes with
the caveat that the map is not the journey. It will never be what we expect it to be. Thus, to paraphrase
22/07/2014 01:48 Conceptual Barriers - Davidya.ca
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Ruiz, dont believe it, but listen.
As we progress through the process of higher stages, well become very familiar with dropping our
ideas to let it unfold. This is surrender on a mental level. It happens for people like me with any
significant opening and at every major stage. Then, with the direct experience, we can understand the
teachings in a new light. We have a sense of the path and we have language and verification after the
fact. We can help others on their journey.
Our ideas of it can also be impediments after the fact. If you come from a tradition that defines
awakening as emptiness or no-self, for example, you may have barriers to the experience of cosmic Self
and fullness. The same is true at every stage of the journey. If you have the idea that Atman is the
ultimate Self, you may struggle a little when you leave it behind. I discovered a couple of my own
conceptual barriers again recently. Correcting them made a remarkable difference.
If Self decides to wake up to itself, perhaps even in spite of our history, concepts will not be a barrier
but they may make settling into it more difficult.
Its also good to be reminded that knowledge is different in different stages of development. We dont
see the world the same way at age 8 as we do as adults. Similarly, each stage has its own perspective
and understanding. What is true for one stage may be false for another. Thus each stage requires some
adaptation and re-jigging. For this reason, what had been developed in a prior stage must be released.
But it is not lost. Rather, it rises again in the new context, in a fuller and richer way. Understanding
this also helps us get where a teacher is speaking from. Supposedly contradictory statements are more
likely addressing different stages.
Be easy. Have fun. Tread lightly. Davidya